[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 12 “Disconnected.”]
It seems like Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) can never catch a break on 9-1-1. Their latest trauma: She was kidnapped by a serial killer (Abigail Spencer), who slashed her throat, but still managed to save Chimney.
Now, Maddie’s recovering, and in this episode, she struggles with losing her voice in the middle of her work as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. Chimney’s the very supportive husband, helping her with her vocal exercises, but because there’s a psychological reason, it’s just a matter of waiting to see when she gets her voice back — which she does when she can’t find their daughter, Jee, at the park.
Below, Choi discusses Chimney supporting Maddie, working with Hewitt, and much more.
Something that this episode reminds me of is something that the show consistently reminds me of, and that’s how much I love how supportive Chimney and Maddie are of each other because they’ve been through so much together and this is just another thing to add on to it for them.
Kenneth Choi: Aww, I agree with that. I concur with you.
What is Chimney seeing in Maddie as she’s navigating life after being kidnapped again and then struggling with the loss of her voice in this episode?
Chim’s just trying to be there for her. He’s trying to be her cheerleader. He’s trying to be her nurse, her doctor, her best friend, and her husband last. He’s trying to be as easygoing as he possibly can because obviously this is the aftermath of something so traumatic for Maddie. He just needs to be there for the love of his life.
How was filming those scenes in this episode with Jennifer, especially as Chimney’s struggling, unable to really do much to help except the vocal exercises with her?
Yeah, it’s nice because even though Chimney is in this helper mode, it doesn’t absolve any conflict. It’s tremendous amounts of conflict because it’s like anybody, when you see your loved one struggling with something, you just want to make it better instantaneously, and you can’t. You just try to make it as good as it possibly can be. And that’s all the two of them have been trying to do for each other over the past, what, seven seasons? They’re just a couple of crazy kids who get mixed up in some crazy stuff, some really crazy stuff, and they just got to work their way back to each other and to normal.
Filming the scenes with Jennifer, I mean, it’s tough because those kind of heavy emotional scenes, they take a toll on you, but we kind of band together. I know for a fact that anytime I work with Jennifer, she’s going to be there for me and I’ll be there for her and we catch each other. Doing heavy emotional stuff, it’s exhausting and it’s exhilarating at the same time. But to get in that headspace of seeing someone that is the love of your life potentially dying in front of you, that stuff can get to you, but we’re good to make sure that we sort of mix it up in between takes and find some levity to kind of juxtapose all of that seriousness.
When I spoke with Jennifer, she said that in addition to Maddie’s PTSD, Chimney has that as well because he had his own experience with Amber. Is there anything coming up there that we’re going to see?
You may see a little bit of it, but I think it’ll fall mostly in the Maddie court. And I just want to give two shout-outs. First of all, the two episodes with the weepy caller, that Abigail Spencer is something else, the sort of shift she had to do from the kind of two split personalities she had. Sometimes as an actor, you read something and you think, “How the f**k are they going to do this? How is she going to pull this up?” And she was incredible, right? She was magnificent. And I want to give a shout-out to Jennifer Love Hewitt because in the episode tonight, you know how she loses her voice, Meredith, right?
Yeah.
I didn’t know how she’s going to pull that off either, because some things, as an actor, you’re looking and go, okay, this can come off bad or off or cheesy. And Jennifer crushed it. She sort of laid the foundation of the seeds right at the beginning of that scene as she pulled it off magnificently. I think she’s stellar in this episode and she proves it, even though she’s not really speaking much. She speaks volumes in just her being, do you know what I mean?
Yeah. In the scene with the doctor, we also see Chimney speaking up for her. He knows exactly where she’s going with things, and we see the strength of their relationship in that because she can’t speak.
Yeah. It’s like they finish each other’s —
Exactly.
You’re not going to do it for me?
Sentences.
Sandwiches, Meredith, we say sandwiches on the set. Didn’t you ever see Frozen?
Disney / Ray Mickshaw
Yes, of course. What else is coming up for Chimney and for Chimney and Maddie? Is there some happiness around the corner? They always deserve it.
In true 9-1-1 form, it’ll be a roller coaster ride. They’re going to have their ups, and they’re going to have their downs. We have some really, really interesting stuff coming up.
We did get the news that they’re having a boy. How much time is there to actually show them getting ready for their baby with everything else that’s going on?
That I honestly can’t answer because we haven’t gotten there yet. A few episodes after the one you saw, we kind of take a break away from Chimney and Maddie, so it’s a different storyline. We have some really incredible episodes that are coming up.
Talk about being directed by Aisha Hinds for Episode 811.
It was lovely to see one of our cast members go behind the camera. We’ve had some crew members do it, and it was lovely to see Aisha should do it, and I think it was a wonderful episode overall. The addition of Lesley Ann Warren to our cast was incredible. I was a fan of hers since the ‘80s, starting with watching her in the Clue and A Night in Heaven. I think the storyline with Bobby [Peter Krause] and his mother and his brother [Sean O’Bryan] had a lot of pathos in it, and I thought there was some incredible acting from Peter and Lesley, especially at the end of the episode. Aisha was very competent, she was prepared, and she was ready. And that’s all you can ask from your director.
I do have to say how much I’m really enjoying all the Chimney and Maddie and Hen and Karen (Tracie Thoms) scenes that we’re getting these past few seasons. What are you enjoying most about those?
I enjoy being surrounded by three incredible f**king actors. Tracie Thoms is a Broadway star, and she brings it every time. Jennifer Love Hewitt has been doing this for I don’t know how many f**king years, and she’s one of the best in the biz. And Aisha Hinds, we have this sort of dynamic where we can just look at each other and we’re completely grounded in who our characters are. So working with three fabulous actors like that, it just raises your game. And we all love each other off screen as well. So it’s quite rewarding to get to play in a sandbox with other people that you normally don’t get to play in the sandbox with. And I think Tim [Minear] did that purposely because he senses when there’s a good dynamic with a new coupling, and he’s very good at keeping writing for that machine.
Right now, Eddie (Ryan Guzman) is in Texas. We see him and Buck (Oliver Stark) FaceTiming in this episode, but are we going to see any Chimney and Eddie calls? We rarely get Chimney and Eddie scenes…
So that is a pairing that we don’t see a lot of, and I’d love to. Personally, Ryan and I have become the tightest of friends over the past few years, and his acting gets better and better and better every season. And he’s at this point now where Tim Minear and I will talk, and Tim will say, “He’s kind of like a Brando, don’t you think?” And I say, yeah, he is kind of like a f**king Brando. I mean, he’s got the looks, he’s got the charm, he’s got the charisma. The camera f**king adores him. But he’s also bringing so much to his acting. He’s bringing so much to his inner life, to his backstory. He’s bringing as much to his relationship between Eddie and Christopher [Gavin McHugh]. He’s just bringing his A+ game every chance that he gets. And so I think I’m going to mention to Tim that going forward, I’d love to have some Chimney and Eddie scenes. You are right. That’s probably the least exposure out of any two characters.
Disney/Christopher Willard
That would be Eddie and Maddie. They have yet to talk.
I’m keeping them apart for a specific reason. You know what I’m saying? [Laughs]
I know Jennifer’s the one who suggested that Maddie and Chimney get together.
Yeah, and it was lovely because I think all of the creative heads and the powers that be probably saw it as being an Eddie Maddie relationship. And Jennifer is the one who said, I think Chimney would be the more interesting choice, because that’s not what people would assume, for whatever reason. And it’s become so incredibly rewarding to get to work with Jennifer, but also this rich storyline between Chimney and Maddie, and they’ve gone through the wringer multiple times. And that’s always nice to play because we’re on a constant roller coaster ride. It’s not just straight up and down, it’s all over the place. So you get to play a bunch of different colors like that.
